The next year, early in the spring, I made my first journey to
Western Europe. In crossing the Russian frontier I experienced, even
more intensely than I was prepared to do, what every Russian feels
on leaving his mother country. So long as the train runs on Russian
ground, through the thinly populated north-western provinces, one has
the feeling of crossing a desert. Hundreds of miles are covered with
low growths which hardly deserve the name of forests. Here and there
the eye discovers a small, miserably poor village buried in the snow,
or an impracticable, muddy, narrow, and winding village road. But
everything--scenery and surroundings--changes all of a sudden as soon
as the train enters Prussia, with its clean-looking villages and farms,
its gardens, and its paved roads; and the sense of contrast grows
stronger and stronger as one penetrates further into Germany. Even dull
Berlin seemed animated after our Russian towns.
And the contrast of climate! Two days before I had left St. Petersburg
thickly covered with snow, and now, in Middle Germany, I walked without
an overcoat along the railway platform, in warm sunshine, admiring
the budding flowers. Then came the Rhine, and further on Switzerland,
bathed in the rays of a bright sun, with its small, clean hotels, where
breakfast was served out of doors, in view of the snow-clad mountains.
I never before had realized so vividly what Russia’s northern position
meant, and how the history of the Russian nation had been influenced
by the fact that the main centres of its life had to develop in high
latitudes, as far north as the shores of the Gulf of Finland. Only then
I fully understood the uncontrollable attraction which southern lands
have exercised on the Russians, the colossal efforts which they have
made to reach the Black Sea, and the steady pressure of the Siberian
colonists southward, further into Manchuria.
* * * * *
At that time Zürich was full of Russian students, both women and men.
The famous Oberstrass, near the Polytechnicum, was a corner of Russia,
where the Russian language prevailed over all others. The students
lived as most Russian students do, especially the women--that is,
upon very little. Tea and bread, some milk, and a thin slice of meat
cooked over a spirit lamp, amidst animated discussions about the latest
news of the socialistic world or the last book read, that was their
regular fare. Those who had more money than was needed for such a mode
of living gave it for the ‘common cause’--the library, the Russian
review which was going to be published, the support of the Swiss labour
papers. As to their dress, the most parsimonious economy reigned in
that direction. Pushkin has written in a well-known verse, ‘What hat
may not suit a girl of sixteen?’ Our girls at Zürich seemed defiantly
to throw this question at the population of the old Zwinglian city:
‘Can there be a simplicity in dress which does not become a girl, when
she is young, intelligent, and full of energy?’
With all this the busy little community worked harder than any other
students have ever worked since there were universities in existence,
and the Zürich professors were never tired of showing the progress
accomplished by the women at the university as an example to the male
students.
* * * * *
For many years I had longed to learn all about the International
Workingmen’s Association. Russian papers mentioned it pretty frequently
in their columns, but they were not allowed to speak of its principles
or what it was doing, I felt that it must be a great movement, full of
consequences, but I could not grasp its aims and tendencies. Now that I
was in Switzerland I determined to satisfy my longings.
The Association was then at the height of its development. Great hopes
had been awakened in the years 1840-48 in the hearts of European
workers. Only now we begin to realize what a formidable amount of
socialist literature was circulated in those years by socialists of all
denominations, Christian socialists, State socialists, Fourierists,
Saint-Simonists, Owenites, and so on; and only now we begin to
understand the depth of that movement, and to discover how much of what
our generation has considered the product of contemporary thought was
already developed and said--often with great penetration--during those
years. The republicans understood then under the name of ‘republic’ a
quite different thing from the democratic organization of capitalist
rule which now goes under that name. When they spoke of the United
States of Europe they understood the brotherhood of workers, the
weapons of war transformed into tools, and these tools used by all
members of society for the benefit of all--‘the iron returned to the
labourer,’ as Pierre Dupont said in one of his songs. They meant not
only the reign of equality as regards criminal law and political
rights, but particularly economic equality. The nationalists themselves
saw in their dreams Young Italy, Young Germany, and Young Hungary
taking the lead in far-reaching agrarian and economic reforms.
The defeat of the June insurrection at Paris, of Hungary by the armies
of Nicholas I., and of Italy by the French and the Austrians, and the
fearful reaction, political and intellectual, which followed everywhere
in Europe, totally destroyed that movement. Its literature, its
achievements, its very principles of economic revolution and universal
brotherhood were simply forgotten, lost, during the next twenty years.
However, one idea had survived--the idea of an international
brotherhood of all the workers, which a few French emigrants continued
to preach in the United States, and the followers of Robert Owen in
England. The understanding which was reached by some English workers
and a few French workers’ delegates to the London International
Exhibition of 1862 became then the starting point for a formidable
movement, which soon spread all over Europe, and included several
million workers. The hopes which had been dormant for twenty years
were awakened once more, when the workers were called upon to unite,
‘without distinction of creed, sex, nationality, race, or colour,’ to
proclaim that ‘the emancipation of the workers must be their own work,’
and to throw the weight of a strong, united, international organization
into the evolution of mankind--not in the name of love and charity,
but in the name of justice, of the force that belongs to a body of men
moved by a reasoned consciousness of their own aims and aspirations.
Two strikes at Paris, in 1868 and 1869, more or less helped by small
contributions sent from abroad, especially from England, insignificant
though they were in themselves, and the prosecutions which the Imperial
Government directed against the International, became the origin of
an immense movement, in which the solidarity of the workers of all
nations was proclaimed in the face of the rivalries of the States.
The idea of an international union of all trades, and of a struggle
against capital with the aid of international support, carried away the
most indifferent of the workers. The movement spread like wildfire in
France, Belgium, Italy, and Spain, bringing to the front a great number
of intelligent, active, and devoted workers, and attracting to it some
decidedly superior men and women from the wealthier educated classes.
A force, never before suspected to exist, grew stronger every day in
Europe; and if the movement had not been arrested in its growth by the
Franco-German war, great things would probably have happened in Europe,
deeply modifying the aspects of our civilization, and undoubtedly
accelerating human progress. Unfortunately, the crushing victory of the
Germans brought about abnormal conditions in Europe; it stopped for a
quarter of a century the normal development of France, and threw all
Europe into a period of militarism, which we are still living in at the
present moment.
* * * * *
All sorts of partial solutions of the great social question had
currency at that time among the workers--co-operation, productive
associations supported by the State, people’s banks, gratuitous credit,
and so on. Each of these solutions was brought before the ‘sections’
of the Association, and then before the local, regional, national,
and international congresses, and eagerly discussed. Every annual
congress of the Association marked a new step in advance, in the
development of ideas about the great social problem which stands before
our generation and calls for a solution. The amount of intelligent
things which were said at these congresses, and of scientifically
correct, deeply thought over ideas which were circulated--all being
the results of the _collective_ thought of the workers--has never yet
been sufficiently appreciated; but there is no exaggeration in saying
that all schemes of social reconstruction which are now in vogue
under the name of ‘scientific socialism’ or ‘anarchism’ had their
origin in the discussions and reports of the different congresses of
the International Association. The few educated men who joined the
movement have only put into a theoretical shape the criticisms and the
aspirations which were expressed in the sections, and subsequently in
the congresses, by the workers themselves.
The war of 1870-71 had hampered the development of the Association,
but had not stopped it. In all the industrial centres of Switzerland
numerous and animated sections of the International existed, and
thousands of workers flocked to their meetings, at which war was
declared upon the existing system of private ownership of land and
factories, and the near end of the capitalist system was proclaimed.
Local congresses were held in various parts of the country, and at each
of these gatherings most arduous and difficult problems of the present
social organization were discussed, with a knowledge of the matter and
a depth of conception which alarmed the middle classes even more than
did the numbers of adherents who joined the sections, or groups, of
the International. The jealousies and prejudices which had hitherto
existed in Switzerland between the privileged trades (the watchmakers
and jewellers) and the rougher trades (weavers, building trades, and
so on), and which had prevented joint action in labour disputes, were
disappearing. The workers asserted with increasing emphasis that of all
the divisions which exist in modern society by far the most important
is that between the owners of capital and those who not only come into
the world penniless, but are doomed to remain producers of wealth for
the favoured few.
Italy, especially middle and northern Italy, was honeycombed with
groups and sections of the International; and in these the Italian
unity so long struggled for was declared a mere illusion. The workers
were called upon to make their own revolution--to take the land for the
peasants and the factories for the workers themselves, and to abolish
the oppressive centralized organization of the State, whose historical
mission always was to protect and to maintain the exploitation of man
by man.
In Spain similar organizations covered Catalonia, Valencia, and
Andalusia; they were supported by, and united with, the powerful
labour unions of Barcelona, which already then had introduced the
eight hours’ day in the building trades. The International had no less
than eighty thousand regularly paying Spanish members; it embodied
all the active and thinking elements of the population; and by its
distinct refusal to meddle with the political intrigues during 1871-72
it had drawn to itself in an immense degree the sympathies of the
masses. The proceedings of its provincial and national congresses, and
the manifestoes which they issued, were models of a severe logical
criticism of the existing conditions, as well as admirably lucid
statements of the workers’ ideals.
In Belgium, Holland, and even in Portugal the same movement was
spreading, and it had already brought into the Association the great
mass and the best elements of the Belgian coal miners and weavers. In
England the trades unions had also joined the movement, at least in
principle, and, without committing themselves to Socialism, were ready
to support their Continental brethren in direct struggles against
capital, especially in strikes. In Germany the socialists had concluded
a union with the rather numerous followers of Lassalle, and the first
foundations of a social democratic party had been laid. Austria and
Hungary followed in the same track; and although no international
organization was possible at that time in France, after the defeat
of the Commune and the reaction which followed (Draconic laws having
been enacted against the adherents of the Association), everyone was
persuaded, nevertheless, that this period of reaction would not last,
and that France would soon join the Association again and take the lead
in it.
When I came to Zürich I joined one of the local sections of the
International Workingmen’s Association. I also asked my Russian friends
where I could learn more about the great movement which was going on
in other countries. ‘Read,’ was their reply, and my sister-in-law, who
was then studying at Zürich, brought me large numbers of books and
collections of newspapers for the last two years. I spent days and
nights in reading, and received a deep impression which nothing will
efface; the flood of new thoughts awakened is associated in my mind
with a tiny clean room in the Oberstrass, commanding from a window
a view of the blue lake, with the mountains beyond it, where the
Swiss fought for their independence, and the high spires of the old
town--that scene of so many religious struggles.
Socialistic literature has never been rich in books. It is written
for workers, for whom one penny is money, and its main force lies in
its small pamphlets and its newspapers. Moreover he who seeks for
information about socialism finds in books little of what he requires
most. They contain the theories or the scientific arguments in favour
of socialist aspirations, but they give no idea how the workers accept
socialist ideals, and how they could put them into practice. There
remains nothing but to take collections of papers and read them all
through--the news as well as the leading articles--the former, perhaps,
even more than the latter. Quite a new world of social relations and
methods of thought and action is revealed by this reading, which gives
an insight into what cannot be found anywhere else--namely, the depth
and the moral force of the movement, the degree to which men are
imbued with the new theories, their readiness to carry them out in
their daily life and to suffer for them. All discussions about the
impracticability of socialism and the necessary slowness of evolution
are of little value, because the speed of evolution can only be judged
from a close knowledge of the human beings of whose evolution we are
speaking. What estimate of a sum can be made without knowing its
components?
The more I read the more I saw that there was before me a new
world, unknown to me, and totally unknown to the learned makers of
sociological theories--a world that I could know only by living in the
Workingmen’s Association and by meeting the workers in their everyday
life. I decided, accordingly, to spend a couple of months in such a
life. My Russian friends encouraged me, and after a few days’ stay
at Zürich I left for Geneva, which was then a great centre of the
international movement.
* * * * *
The place where the Geneva sections used to meet was the spacious
Masonic Temple Unique. More than two thousand men could come together
in its large hall at the general meetings, while every evening all
sorts of committee and section meetings took place in the side-rooms,
or classes in history, physics, engineering, and so on, were held.
Free instruction was given there to the workers by the few, very few,
middle-class men who had joined the movement, mainly French refugees of
the Paris Commune. It was a people’s university as well as a people’s
forum.
One of the chief leaders of the movement at the Temple Unique was a
Russian, Nicholas Ootin, a bright, clever, and active man; and the
real soul of it was a most sympathetic Russian lady, who was known
far and wide amongst the workers as Madame Olga. She was the working
force in all the committees. Both Ootin and Madame Olga received me
cordially, made me acquainted with all the men of mark in the sections
of the different trades, and invited me to be present at the committee
meetings. So I went, but I preferred being with the workers themselves.
Taking a glass of sour wine at one of the tables in the hall, I used to
sit there every evening amid the workers, and soon became friendly with
several of them, especially with a stonemason from Alsace, who had left
France after the insurrection of the Commune. He had children, just
about the age of the two whom my brother had so suddenly lost a few
months before, and through the children I was soon on good terms with
the family and their friends. I could thus follow the movement from the
inside, and know the workers’ view of it.
The workers had built all their hopes on the international movement.
Young and old flocked to the Temple Unique after their long day’s work,
to get hold of the scraps of instruction which they could obtain there,
or to listen to the speakers who promised them a grand future, based
upon the common possession of all that man requires for the production
of wealth, and upon a brotherhood of men, without distinction of
caste, race, or nationality. All hoped that a great social revolution,
peaceful or not, would soon come and totally change the economic
conditions. No one desired class war, but all said that if the ruling
classes rendered it unavoidable, through their blind obstinacy, the war
must be fought over, provided it would bring with it well-being and
liberty to the down-trodden masses.
One must have lived among the workers at that time to realize the
effect which the sudden growth of the Association had upon their
minds--the trust they put in it, the love with which they spoke of it,
the sacrifices they made for it. Every day, week after week and year
after year, thousands of workers gave their time and their coppers,
taken upon their very food, in order to support the life of each
group, to secure the appearance of the papers, to defray the expenses
of the congresses, to support the comrades who had suffered for the
Association. Another thing that impressed me deeply was the elevating
influence which the International exercised. Most of the Paris
Internationalists were almost total abstainers from drink, and all had
abandoned smoking. ‘Why should I nurture in myself that weakness?’ they
said. The mean, the trivial disappeared to leave room for the grand,
the elevating inspirations.
Outsiders never realize the sacrifices which are made by the workers in
order to keep their labour movements alive. No small amount of moral
courage was required to join openly a section of the International
Association, and to face the discontent of the master and a probable
dismissal at the first opportunity, with the long months out of work
which usually followed. But, even under the best circumstances,
belonging to a trade union, or to any advanced party, requires a series
of uninterrupted sacrifices. Even a few pence given for the common
cause represent a burden on the meagre budget of the European worker,
and many pence have to be disbursed every week. Frequent attendance
at the meetings means a sacrifice too. For us it may be a pleasure to
spend a couple of hours at a meeting, but for men whose working day
begins at five or six in the morning those hours have to be stolen from
necessary rest.
I felt this devotion as a standing reproach. I saw how eager the
workers were to gain instruction, and how despairingly few were those
who volunteered to aid them. I saw how much the toiling masses needed
to be helped by men possessed of education and leisure in their
endeavours to spread and to develop the organization; but few and rare
were those who came to assist without the intention of making political
capital out of this very helplessness of the people! More and more I
began to feel that I was bound to cast in my lot with them. Stepniák
says, in his ‘Career of a Nihilist,’ that every revolutionist has had
a moment in his life when some circumstance, maybe unimportant in
itself, has brought him to pronounce his oath of giving himself to the
cause of revolution. I know that moment; I lived through it after one
of the meetings at the Temple Unique, when I felt more acutely than
ever before how cowardly are the educated men who hesitate to put their
education, their knowledge, their energy at the service of those who
are so much in need of that education and that energy. ‘Here are men,’
I said to myself, ‘who are conscious of their servitude, who work to
get rid of it; but where are the helpers? Where are those who will come
to serve the masses--not to utilize them for their own ambitions?’
* * * * *
Gradually some doubts began, however, to creep into my mind as to the
soundness of the agitation which was carried on at the Temple Unique.
One night a well-known Geneva lawyer, Monsieur A., came to the meeting,
and stated that if he had not hitherto joined the Association it was
because he had first to settle his own business affairs; having now
succeeded in that direction, he came to join the labour movement.
I felt shocked at this cynical avowal, and when I communicated my
reflections to my stone-mason friend he explained to me that this
gentleman, having been defeated at the previous election, when he
sought the support of the radical party, now hoped to be elected by the
support of the labour vote. ‘We accept their services for the present,’
my friend concluded, ‘but when the revolution comes our first move will
be to throw all of them overboard.’
Then came a great meeting, hastily convoked, to protest, as it was
said, against the calumnies of the ‘Journal de Genève.’ This organ of
the moneyed classes of Geneva had ventured to suggest that mischief was
brewing at the Temple Unique, and that the building trades were going
once more to make a general strike, such as they had made in 1869. The
leaders at the Temple Unique called the meeting. Thousands of workers
filled the hall, and Ootin asked them to pass a resolution, the wording
of which seemed to me very strange: an indignant protest was expressed
in it against the inoffensive suggestion that the workers were going
to strike. ‘Why should this suggestion be described as a calumny?’ I
asked myself. ‘Is it, then, a crime to strike?’ Ootin concluded in the
meantime a hurried speech in support of his resolution with the words,
‘If you agree, citizens, with it I will send it at once to the press.’
He was going to leave the platform, when somebody in the hall suggested
that discussion would not be out of place; and then the representatives
of all branches of the building trades stood up in succession, saying
that the wages had lately been so low that they could hardly live upon
them; that with the opening of the spring there was plenty of work in
view, of which they intended to take advantage to increase their wages;
and that if an increase were refused they intended to begin a general
strike.
I was furious, and next day hotly reproached Ootin for his behaviour.
‘As a leader,’ I told him, ‘you were bound to know that a strike had
really been spoken of.’ In my innocence I did not suspect the real
motives of the leaders, and it was Ootin himself who made me understand
that a strike at that time would be disastrous for the election of the
lawyer, Monsieur A.
I could not reconcile this wire-pulling by the leaders with the
burning speeches I had heard them pronounce from the platform. I
felt disheartened, and spoke to Ootin of my intention to make myself
acquainted with the other section of the International Association at
Geneva, which was known as the Bakunísts. The name ‘anarchist’ was
not much in use then. Ootin gave me at once a word of introduction to
another Russian, Nicholas Joukóvsky, who belonged to that section, and,
looking straight into my face, he added with a sigh, ‘Well, you won’t
return to us; you will remain with them.’ He had guessed right.